Who Went to the Town Hall Meeting?? What did you think??

[mam98031]

Did you go to the Town All Meeting today? 

What did you think about it? 

Did you get any questions answered?

Do you feel better about the direction of Ebay?

For myself I learned that in regards to Seller protection, they are aware of many issues that lots of us have brought up on the threads over and over and over again over the past couple years, but no resolutions or policy changes were given.  Just they are aware and are working on them.  We've heard this before, so it is a rinse and repeat.

I loved learning we will be able to soon edit Item specifics in bulk.  That is a very good thing.

We learned that sometime later this year we will be able to get our transactional history for up to a year.  They didn't share any specifics on this, so while it is very good news, until we actually see how this works in application, it is hard to say if it is enough.

They also requested again that if we see issues with the catalog to report them to sdsupport@ebay.com

That will enable them to get the catalog in better operating condition.  I know for myself I am remiss in reporting what I run across when I'm listing items, but it would take a bunch of time on my part to do this.  I know I should, but sometimes my schedule just doesn't work with that goal in mind.

The 25cent processing fee in MP for each listing that a buyer may purchase from a single seller was a topic too.  Simply that they are aware that it is harmful to some sellers more than others and they are considering doing something, but they haven't decided as it is very complicated.  This is something they have known about since the day they announced this change.  The threads were lit up on this subject for days.  

So what did you learn?

[mam98031]

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@picknparley wrote:

"......They opened a thread for question specifically for the Town Meeting, but they never even addressed anything or not much of anything contained in the thread." 

I'm pretty sure they picked the questions based on how many thumbs up the submissions received.

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@picknparley 

Picked them for what?  They didn't talk about them in the Town Meeting..  

[mam98031]

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@alcoforever wrote:

They could have done a better job of editing it.   Four minutes of useless music at the beginning and another minute at the end.   Sheesh!

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That was before the schedule start time and after the meeting had ended.  I suppose they could have done dead air instead.

[chapeau-noir]

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@mam98031 wrote:

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@picknparley wrote:

"......They opened a thread for question specifically for the Town Meeting, but they never even addressed anything or not much of anything contained in the thread." 

I'm pretty sure they picked the questions based on how many thumbs up the submissions received.

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@picknparley 

Picked them for what?  They didn't talk about them in the Town Meeting..  

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The 'questions for the town hall' thread where we were all asked to submit our questions, comment on the questions, questions were thumbed up, etc. The one with the most thumbs up didn't get much of a discussion, though. 

[mam98031]

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@chapeau-noir wrote:

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@mam98031 wrote:

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@picknparley wrote:

"......They opened a thread for question specifically for the Town Meeting, but they never even addressed anything or not much of anything contained in the thread." 

I'm pretty sure they picked the questions based on how many thumbs up the submissions received.

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@picknparley 

Picked them for what?  They didn't talk about them in the Town Meeting..  

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The 'questions for the town hall' thread where we were all asked to submit our questions, comment on the questions, questions were thumbed up, etc. The one with the most thumbs up didn't get much of a discussion, though. 

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Yes, that is what I said??!!!??

[alcoforever]

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@mam98031 wrote:

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@alcoforever wrote:

They could have done a better job of editing it.   Four minutes of useless music at the beginning and another minute at the end.   Sheesh!

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That was before the schedule start time and after the meeting had ended.  I suppose they could have done dead air instead.

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I didn't view it live - tuned in several hours after it was over - they should have edited out the dead stuff.

OT: after viewing all the replies on this thread, I would have to summarize the Town Hall as a big meh.

[orangehound]

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@bargainbigly wrote:

It was a total waste of time to watch it. They were reading off cue cards, not answering questions, and just generally reiterating the same tired old statements over and over again that everybody's been hearing for years.

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Your statement pretty much summarizes my thoughts.   Five minutes of whimsical banter (who cares) ... 20 minutes to give shallow answers to 3-4 questions/concerns that have been shallowly answered multiple times before ... five minutes of previewing tomorrow's seller update (really??).

I'm generally pretty upbeat with eBay, but this was not good.

There were a lot of well-articulated questions of genuine and deep concerns expressed in that forum, and this came off to me as three people who were out-of-touch and dismissive.  It was as if they were laughing before the broadcast saying, "OK, let's get this over with.  I've got more important things to do, rather than talking to the minions."

I've said this for a long time:  They really need to get a focus group of insightful sellers to advise them.

[picknparley]

".......Picked them for what?  They didn't talk about them in the Town Meeting.."

Oh, agreed!  Teeny tiny effort made by reading one or two concerns.  I didn't say they answered them - just read them.  And smiled..... Everything is going to be fine. Trust us.

[picknparley]

".......That was before the schedule start time and after the meeting had ended.  I suppose they could have done dead air instead..."

That was the 'Take Your Seat' and 'Exit Through Those Doors' music. 

[gwzcomps]

Not gonna lie I made the mistake of building my business around eBay, Learning the hard way but FB has been treating me well fortunately 🙂 Starting over from scratch is rough 😕

[chapeau-noir]

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@orangehound wrote:

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@bargainbigly wrote:

It was a total waste of time to watch it. They were reading off cue cards, not answering questions, and just generally reiterating the same tired old statements over and over again that everybody's been hearing for years.

---

Your statement pretty much summarizes my thoughts.   Five minutes of whimsical banter (who cares) ... 20 minutes to give shallow answers to 3-4 questions/concerns that have been shallowly answered multiple times before ... five minutes of previewing tomorrow's seller update (really??).

I'm generally pretty upbeat with eBay, but this was not good.

There were a lot of well-articulated questions of genuine and deep concerns expressed in that forum, and this came off to me as three people who were out-of-touch and dismissive.  It was as if they were laughing before the broadcast saying, "OK, let's get this over with.  I've got more important things to do, rather than talking to the minions."

I've said this for a long time:  They really need to get a focus group of insightful sellers to advise them.

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I had the distinct impression that they didn't quite know how to answer some of those questions in the time they were given - in their favour, they weren't given much and too much was spent in chitter chatter - I could tell that they were feeling pretty rushed as time went on - so they picked some low-hanging fruit and went by the usual playbook of a phrase or two about "what we're doing" and then spinning it. Then they concluded by gabbling incoherently the contact email address (who got docked lunch money for saying it coherently before sign off?).  I picked up a couple of useful bits of information so it wasn't a total loss for me, but  good GAWD it took them FOUR MONTHS to code in the industry standard item specifics for women's plus sizes?  REALLY?  I wonder if they slotted that in a couple of days before the Town Hall event as a bribe.

I'm usually pretty upbeat about eBay, too (save for the constant tech failures and glitches) but felt this could have been (1) Longer and (2) better.

Hopefully they'll work on improving the next event.

[1786davycrockett]

"Partners in the same way a gold digger is a partner."

Or, perhaps more precisely, a lamprey or wood-tick, or other blood-sucking parasite.

[my-cottage-books-and-antiques]

I think they should have tried to set expectations beforehand. We really didn't know how much time would be allotted for this---an hour? two hours? Well, it was 40 minutes. And they should have told us in advance that they were only going to be responding to the top five (or whatever it was) questions.
If I had known all of that beforehand, I would have had a better idea of what to expect. Given those limitations, especially the 40 minute time frame, I think they did OK. Not great, but OK for a first effort.

[mam98031]

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@my-cottage-books-and-antiques wrote:
I think they should have tried to set expectations beforehand. We really didn't know how much time would be allotted for this---an hour? two hours? Well, it was 40 minutes. And they should have told us in advance that they were only going to be responding to the top five (or whatever it was) questions.
If I had known all of that beforehand, I would have had a better idea of what to expect. Given those limitations, especially the 40 minute time frame, I think they did OK. Not great, but OK for a first effort.

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I think that is a wonderful idea.  But I think some expectations were set when they started the thread asking members to submit questions FOR THE TOWN HALL, yet they seemed to ignore that thread completely during the Town Hall.  

[zamo-zuan]

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@mam98031 wrote:

Did you go to the Town All Meeting today? 

What did you think about it? 

Did you get any questions answered?

Do you feel better about the direction of Ebay?

For myself I learned that in regards to Seller protection, they are aware of many issues that lots of us have brought up on the threads over and over and over again over the past couple years, but no resolutions or policy changes were given.  Just they are aware and are working on them.  We've heard this before, so it is a rinse and repeat.

I loved learning we will be able to soon edit Item specifics in bulk.  That is a very good thing.

We learned that sometime later this year we will be able to get our transactional history for up to a year.  They didn't share any specifics on this, so while it is very good news, until we actually see how this works in application, it is hard to say if it is enough.

They also requested again that if we see issues with the catalog to report them to sdsupport@ebay.com

That will enable them to get the catalog in better operating condition.  I know for myself I am remiss in reporting what I run across when I'm listing items, but it would take a bunch of time on my part to do this.  I know I should, but sometimes my schedule just doesn't work with that goal in mind.

The 25cent processing fee in MP for each listing that a buyer may purchase from a single seller was a topic too.  Simply that they are aware that it is harmful to some sellers more than others and they are considering doing something, but they haven't decided as it is very complicated.  This is something they have known about since the day they announced this change.  The threads were lit up on this subject for days.  

So what did you learn?

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I came out of it somewhat discouraged, and worried that it seems like they know they dug themselves in to a bad situation, and they seemingly having no idea how to solve the problems they're left with, so they aren't taking any action yet.

It has been 2 years of decline, and that should be long enough for them to begin taking drastic action. It's pretty scary that they've not come up with any answers yet.

If they're truly aware that returns need to be rethought out, and that protections are a problem, they need to just scrap this system. It was a failed experiment. 

But I worry that they likely invested hundreds of thousand of dollars (or more) in bringing them to this point, and they don't want that to go to waste. 

At the end of the day, they truly need to start focusing on what is best for eBay as a marketplace, and begin scrapping anything that has proven to be harmful for marketplace health. 

Did not feel like any of the most important questions were answered, although they did show awareness. Awareness is good, but they're the ones that should be providing answers.

I definitely do not feel better about the direction of eBay. It seems simply like more of the same. They were so quick with making decisions that were harmful to eBay, why are they so reluctant to make decisions that will be helpful to eBay?

[twnpopcards]

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@bargainbigly wrote:

Exactly, the 25 cent question came up at the last AMA. No answer then, no answer now. 

So, if you guys don't have the ability to actually change anything, why hosting a town hall?

I can empathize with them somewhat whatsoever, as the whole town hall looked kinda like a hostage situation.

The company is being stripped down and sold off by the hedge fund owners, and the hired help is powerless. 

That's what I witnessed today. 

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Never will get an answer as Ebay needs every extra penny they can squeeze out of their sellers while sales continue to drop.  Since the CRedit Card Processor only charges them one transaction fee (not even close to 25cents) the rest of the $0.25 charges are pure profit in ebays pockets.  Just another way to steal more money from the Sellers that they are unable to provide a decent working site for any longer.  Until Ebay steps up and spends some of that money they continue to buy their stock back with to attempt and hold the price up so when the executive and BOD finally sell their shares on actually trying to hire some talented employees to fix their site, this is the only way Ebay will be able to continue to show any type of growth at all.  Evidently even Elliott now realizes that the site cannot be fixed as the BOD voted to use the STub Hub proceeds to buy back stock rather than what Elliott proposed in their Open Letter about fixing the marketplace.  That would explain why nothing really ever changes except new ways to take more money from Sellers while not providing any worthwhile changes on the marketplace platform.